CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#garbage-collection
Christophe
Christophe

Reputation: 53

var ByteArray VS byte[] array: garbage collector behavior

Last week, i made a code interview.

My interviewer said: "What do you prefer between

  var byteArray = myFunction();
  and
  byte[] Array = myFunction();" ?

I answered, once compiled, theses lines give the same result.

And my interviewer said: "Yes, but they are not garbaged the same way: var byteArray is better because GC garbages the variable quickly."

I'm very astonished that two lines of code giving the same result once compiled are not garbaged the same way, but maybe i'm wrong.

So: Are they garbaged the same way or not ? If not, can you explain me why ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 177

Answers (3)

Bathsheba
Bathsheba

Reputation: 234795

Your interviewer was incorrect.

In your particular case, var stands in for byte[]. The code is equivalent.

Perhaps your interviewer was thinking, in error, that the first case in a sense creates one object, but the second case creates several. Hogwash, of course.

Upvotes: 4

Luaan
Luaan

Reputation: 63772

They are exactly the same, assuming there's no implicit conversion to byte[] involved. There's no way for them to be different, since var is just syntactic sugar that gets replaced with the proper type.

Upvotes: 4

Patrick Hofman
Patrick Hofman

Reputation: 157058

Yes, they are garbage collected the same way. Same types, same behavior. This is a compiler feature: once compiled, there is nothing what makes the one code different than the other.

Upvotes: 6

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